Soviet Fireball

November 9, 1986|By Charlie Jean

RUSSIAN CHEMISTS say they have discovered a new kind of combustion: a ''liquid flame'' in which the process of burning organizes itself into a glowing molten ball instead of a gas. Soviet scientists at the Institute of Physico-Chemical Problems in Minsk say they produced the highly unusual process of liquid combustion in a reaction of two related compounds, tetrazole and sodium tetrazolate. The discovery is part of an increasingly active study of the highly complex phenomena of combustion, in which chemical reactions are complicated by the dynamics of motion, creating a variety of ''self- organizing'' patterns.